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Re: Drone strikes counterproductive, says secret CIA report

Originally Posted by CanadaJohn

Drones were developed as a tool of war and first used in the field under President Bush, but only in the theater of war. President Obama and his administration decided to use the drone program for state sponsored assassinations outside of war zones and in sovereign countries with or without those countries' approval. To deny that is partisanship and pointless.

Bush struck Pakistan among other country's outside the theatre of war.

Re: Drone strikes counterproductive, says secret CIA report

Originally Posted by BmanMcfly

It would also help if the left didn't become a group of hypocrites... hating on bush for everything he was doing, and then using bush's actions as justification for more of the same when Obama came on the scene.

(Not saying the right are not equally hypocrites for different reasons)

Ummmm how did the left do this? They condemn bush unjust for war, and condemn Obama for the same unjust war.

Re: Drone strikes counterproductive, says secret CIA report

Originally Posted by Amadeus

Drone bombing Muslims gives people the impression that he's fighting the War on Terror (still popular among centrists and the right-wing) without sacrificing troops. Seems like a sad political calculation more than anything...

The war on terror was a sad political calculation as was the war on "communism" or drugs...

Re: Drone strikes counterproductive, says secret CIA report

Wait! Say it aint so? Drone strikes actually are counterproductive and lead to more terrorists and terrorist attacks? [/FONT][/COLOR]

The CIA study observes that the US-led coalition in Afghanistan made "a sustained effort since 2001 to target Taliban leaders", but "Afghan government corruption and lack of unity, insufficient strength of Afghan and NATO security forces, and the country's endemic lawlessness have constrained the effectiveness of these counter-insurgency elements".

"Senior Taliban leaders' use of sanctuary in Pakistan has also complicated the HVT effort," the CIA says. "Moreover, the Taliban has a high overall ability to replace lost leaders, a centralised but flexible command and control overlaid with egalitarian Pashtun structures, and good succession planning and bench strength, especially at the middle levels."

Fifteen years of continuous warfare, hundreds of thousands of lives claimed and they are NOW beginning to think maybe they have not been very effective?

I wonder too, if the deliberate failure to share this kind of intelligence with allies, "NoForm", has help and abetted the "lack of unity" and/or whether the lives of allied troops have not been jeopardized by not sharing it.

You keep secrets from your enemy, not your friends. I will never again support Canadian support for a US military operation.

Americans can always be counted on doing the right thing...after they have tried everything else." Winston Churchill.